Why do the talking heads of television shut down for the summer? While we know that it is just our hardcore readers who drop by during these months, we are not going to let them down. There is lots to discuss.
That takeover by Jason Kenney in Alberta has yet to be resolved. The attempt to join the Conservatives and Wildrose parties is causing new splinter groups to emerge. Maybe the idea of uniting the right needed some one other than Jason Kenney to lead it. Judging by his attacks on the Alberta Party, he seems to be more concerned about a united centre.
Frankly, we are intrigued with the on-going drama in British Columbia. It looks as though it is the left there that needs to unite to get the majority needed to keep Clark’s corrupt, right-wing Liberals where they belong. And with the battle over Kinder Morgan’s planned increase in pumping diluted bitumen over the Rockies—the issue will boomerang back to Ottawa.
And it should embarrass and splatter all over our hypocritical Prime Minister. Being the poster boy for the environment and approving pipelines for bitumen are not compatible positions. Bitumen from the oil sands pollutes in the extraction process, is a serious threat of environmental disaster when fed through pipelines, spews carbon into the environment being converted to synthetic oil, leaving tons of bitumen slag to further pollute and then is used in carbon producing internal combustion engines. Bitumen is no-win stuff.
But that cannot be the “Jonny one-note” excuse for Canada’s New Democratic Party. The lackadaisical contest to replace Thomas Mulcair as national leader does not speak well for the party, the contestants or our country.
We are about to go into negotiations to change the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and that is as vital to our economy as it is to the Americans and the Mexicans. There is no excuse for sleeping though any one of those sessions. We have to show up front that we are not going to be bullied. All three countries have to bargain in good faith.
And there is lots more to discuss. We will be coming back to the subjects mentioned and many others. We will wait for September to come up with a morning line for the NDP leadership contest.
For the rest of the summer, you can be assured that politics is never a boring subject.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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